hold myself
by closingdoors
Summary: Post 7x01 fic of the smut variety. "She gives him her body. But she cannot give him her heart." COMPLETE


please come to bed soon, honey -  
i forget how to hold myself  
and i need someone  
to show me.  
**\- mine, inkskinned**

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**Disclaimer:** I'm just a poor uni student, nothing else. Please don't post post 7x01 spoilers in reviews as I'm spoiler free/potentially not watching the rest of the season for a while.

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They pull away from one another slowly, softly, his hand shedding itself from her shoulder to curl around her waist. One of her hands moves down, stops on his mid-thigh and she sighs, dropping her head to let the curls hide her expression again. Too much crying. These past months have been filled with nothing but pain.

"I like this," he says, brushing her hair behind her ear, and she bites her lip. "When did you cut it?"

Her hand tightens its grip on his thigh. "A month ago."

What she doesn't tell him is that one night she took blunt scissors to her hair, freshly wet from the shower, and watched, detached, as her hands had mechanically chopped piece after piece off. The result had almost been barbaric in nature; choppy, messy, uneven. Locks had lain in tatters around her feet, just beginning to dry as Martha had walked in. She hadn't needed to say anything. The older woman had simply sighed, sat her down in a chair in the living room and fixed the mess while Kate had stared blankly ahead, and had said nothing else for the rest of the night.

What she doesn't tell him is that it had relieved the heavy weight cloaking her for all of the time that he was gone, and that in the moment, most of her had hated him for it. For doing this to her. For leaving. He had become the same as all of the other people she'd loved in her life. He had left.

She doesn't tell him this. Instead, she looks back at him, finds him watching her, and leans forward to press a kiss against his throat.

"Kate," he murmurs, hand flexing around her waist. "I don't expect - "

"Shh," she whispers, pressing on his shoulders until he's laying flat against the bed and she can swing a leg over to straddle him, "let me."

When she leans down and finally presses her mouth to his, she loses her breath. _Oh. _It's been so long, she'd almost forgotten - had almost wanted to forget how this felt. She opens her mouth to him immediately, groaning at the feel of his warmth against her, hands moving down to push his robe open, desperate to find his skin.

His tongue slicks against hers and her hips jerk without her permission, a needy whine escaping her mouth. Too long. It's been too long without him and she never thought she'd see him again, hold him again, _be _with him like this.

His hands cup her ass through her robe and long t-shirt, and she grounds her lower body down into his, mouth separating from his as she sits up to strip him of his shirt. He lets her, eyes meeting hers and she rocks her lower body into his again, feeling him harden beneath her as her palms move forward, spread across his bare chest, sliver across his bullet scar. One he claims he doesn't remember getting, but she knows all too well how easy it is to lie about moments like those.

Most of her wants to lean down. Press her lips against the scar, help him heal. It's not as rough and ugly as her own, merely the result of a graze, but it still makes her own scar burn to see. But she doesn't lean down. Instead she lifts up slightly, removing her bath robe from her own body and pulling her t-shirt off, revealing her naked body to him for the first time in two months.

The last time they had done this, he'd teased her about becoming Mrs Castle soon.

The thought rips through her, steals her breath and she slams her eyes closed, nails digging into his bare skin.

"Kate?"

His hands skim up her sides, slowly, delicate. But no - no she doesn't _want _delicate and she doesn't want him to be so afraid to touch her. She simultaneously wants everything to be how it was before and nothing to ever be the same again. Because there are things she can't tell him. She can tell him about the photo and about the chair and regaining hope but she can't tell him about the times that she had none. The times at night when her body longed for his and she came crying, fingers feeling like they were scalding her own skin. The times when she wore nothing but his shirts until they stopped smelling like him and only smelt like herself. The times when she felt like she couldn't be _her _when it seemed like he was no longer _him._

No, she can't tell him these things. So she lifts up slightly, hands pulling down the waistband of his bottoms, to reveal him hard for her, and almost immediately sinks down on him.

She gives him her body. But she cannot give him her heart.

He sits up, groaning into the skin of her neck, hands clutching at her back as she turns her head, breathing hotly against his cheek as she begins to move. Fluid motions, the rocking of her hips, the brush of her chest against his.

"Rick," she whispers. "Please."

She doesn't know what she's asking for.

She knows he will not give her answers.

Using his feet on the ground, Castle thrusts his hips up into her, startling her from her rhythm and making her see stars. She gasps, biting down on her lower lip and he stills again, watching her for her next move.

Kate reaches between them, finds the place in which they are joined even as she keeps her eyes firmly shut, unable to handle the way he looks at her anymore. Her fingers find her clit and she drops her head against his shoulder, breathing harsh and shallow as her hips grow sloppy in their rhythm, jerking erratically against him, desperate for some kind of release.

His fingers find her chin, pulling her lips to his and she whimpers into the kiss, fingers moving frantically now. The dig of her teeth against his lips, harsh and abrasive, makes his hips jerk up to her again, his groan no longer muted as his hands grip the flesh of her waist. God. She's forgotten his touch. Had expected to never find it again. She presses into his hands, sighing when they find her breasts, eyelids fluttering momentarily and she catches glimpses of skin and nothing more. All she can think of is how she'd forgotten his touch, how she'd almost given up too many times and is still too heartbroken to trust him again, when she knows if their positions had been reversed he never would've given up on her.

One hand spread against his ribs, she feels the way his muscles begin to tighten, and when she kisses him against she can feel how tense his jaw is. He's holding back.

"It's okay," she whispers into his ear, moving her hips in the swiveling motion she knows he likes and looping both of her hands around his neck. "It's okay. Let go, Castle."

"Kate -"

She bites down on the shell of his ear, swiveling her hips one more time before he groans, the vibrations of his chest rattling through hers, and then his own hips jerk a few more times and she feels the warmth of him spilling into her.

The tears form wet and hot and bitter in her eyes.

"You didn't…" he begins to say when he comes down from his climax, but she buries her face in his shoulder.

"Can we just sit like this?" She croaks hoarsely. "Just for a little while?"

His hands sweep across the skin of her back.

"Of course, Kate," he whispers back. "We can sit like this."

A shudder rips long and violent through her, mouth opening against his skin but her sob is silent. And so is Castle.

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**The End**


End file.
